"Moviegoers who knowingly buy a ticket for 'The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor' are going to get exactly what they expect: There is a mummy, a tomb, a dragon and an emperor. And the movie about them is all that it could be."

A title should tell you what a movie, show, episode of a show or product is about or does. Sometimes, though, the premise or plot of the story is all right there in the title. That's when you can say that the story is "Exactly What It Says on the Tin". Thus, this trope.

The names of action shows designed for children tend to have this as a distinguishing feature, as do many pornographic films, but it certainly doesn't stop there.

Also shows up in naming; an object or organization that does exactly what its name says falls into this trope through sheer power of doing Exactly What It Says In Its Name.

This trope is only for titles or names given deliberately by authors or marketers. All Real Life Examples go in Titles or Advertising section. This is not a trope for the names of things in general.

When adding examples to this page, there are some notes to keep in mind:

Just because it may be obvious to you doesn't mean it's obvious to everyone. That next door neighbor you never talk to? Tell her the title and see if she can give a one sentence description of the plot. If not, then the title is NOT Exactly What It Says On The Tin. This also means that if you feel the need to explain it, it probably isn't this trope.

As a rule of thumb, for this trope to apply to a work you generally need a paperthin/non-existent plot, an overly descriptive title, or both.

It isn't enough for the title to just be relevant or accurate — everything meaningful has to be conveyed in the title. However, only the meaningful parts need to be in the title; the title doesn't have to be the entire script of the movie.

Note: Many examples on this page actually do not qualify and we are in the process of slowly cleaning it up. Please help us by removing examples that don't fit when you see them.

Examples:

Title Examples:

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Advertising

Ronseal Quick Drying Woodstain: Trope Namer, as its advertisement claims it does what its name is — it dries quickly and is a woodstain.

Kellogg's Sugar Frosted Flakes — as the box indicates, the full name is even more Exactly What It Says on the Tin: they're Kellogg's Sugar Frosted Flakes of Corn◊ used to be this at least in the USA and Canada, but the word "sugar" was dropped in the 1980s making it less of an example. There's also the frosting-free version, Corn Flakes. A lot of store-brand versions of popular cereals follow this trope. Averted in other markets where they are simply known as "Frosties".

There's a popular restaurant in Philadelphia's Reading Terminal Market called "Dutch Eating Place". As long as you're aware that "Dutch" means "Pennsylvania Dutch" (i.e. German) and what that entails (and if you're in Philly, you should, and if you don't you should learn), there's nothing else you need to know about it.

Commonly used by budget brands, where the packaging would just state something like "Peanut butter" or "Toilet paper". Also demonstrated by xkcd.

Anime & Manga

All of the episode titles for Baccano! are very straightforward. For example:

"The Vice President Doesn't Say Anything about the Possibility of Him Being the Main Character" (Episode 1)

The Japanese version of Dragon Ball Z is particularly bad, with episodes such as "Here comes Satan's Army! Mr. Satan Gets Beat In One hit..." in which Mr. Satan tries to fight Cell, only to get beat in one hit, or "Pitiful Frieza Cannot Stop Shaking" in which pitiful Frieza cannot stop shaking. This is probably because, due to excessive fillers, very little happens in some episodes, and in addition, the Japanese episode titles are all really long, so it's fairly common for the episode title to describe exactly what happens in the episode. It could also be because it is assumed that all the viewers has already read the manga so they just explicitly state whenever something will happen for example "Transformed at Last!! Son Goku, the Legendary Super Saiyan".

Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches; a guy named Yamada (some of his peers use the -kun honorific with him) interacts with the seven witches of his high school. Becomes an Artifact Title in the second part as there are now 14 witches. Here, the plot also starts to revolve a bit more about unrequited love, revenge and political power struggles instead of just the witches themselves. The same in the third part where the series becomes noticeably more Slice of Life with the witch powers taking a backseat.

Most of Franz Marc's paintings are this, especially his animal paintings, for example the Small blue horse◊. A notable exception is also his most famous (and lost) painting, ''The Tower of Blue Horses◊, where the title is an analogy to the composition of the painting, as the (blue) horses are arranged in a tier to the right of centre, towering over each other.

The "Rape Tunnel", a sequel to the artist's previous work, the "Punch You In The Face Tunnel", in which the artist constructed a tunnel, and would attempt to perform the specified action on anyone who walked through it. (Happily or sadly, the whole thing was actually a hoax; he never actually built either of them, just pretended he had.)

"Girl with a Pearl Earring", by artist Johannes Vermeer is a painting of, well, a girl with a pearl earring.

JMW Turner, whose paintings included "Slave Ship (Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On)", "The Fighting Temeraire Tugged to Her Last Berth to Be Broken up", and "The Battle of Trafalgar, as Seen from the Mizen Starboard Shrouds of the Victory". It does not take a genius to figure out what's being depicted.

Paula Poundstone's award-winning HBO show was called "Cops, Cats and Stuff". Guess what Paula talks about?

Norm MacDonald has a DVD entitled "Norm MacDonald: Me Doing Stand-Up" is a good example.

Jimmy Carr's live DVD titles are, in order of release: "Live", "Standup", "Comedian", "In Concert", "Telling Jokes", "Making People Laugh", "Being Funny", "Laughing and Joking". Which could be strung together as a single sentence describing all or any one of them.

Joshua Ladgrove:

His 2015 Melbourne International Comedy Festival Show, "Joshua Ladgrove Talks at You for 52 Minutes in Exchange for Some of Your Money".

His 2014 show, "Come Heckle Christ", invited the audience to do exactly that.

Vinyl and Octavia Get Incredibly Drunk There's also a prequel, Vinyl and Octavia Machete Their Way Through the Jungle, and three sequels, Vinyl and Octavia Are Forcibly Shipped, Vinyl and Octavia Fight Ten Thousand Ninjas, and Vinyl and Octavia Have Multiple Dates.

Chapter 48 of Vapors is titled "In Which Danzo Is Blamed for Something He Did Not Do (for Once)." It deals with exhuming Sasuke's parents to find that their eyes were stolen. Tobi did it, but no one else knows that.

Enforced in Snakes on a Plane. It was originally only a working title. They eventually decided on "Pacific Air Flight 121". Contrary to popular belief, Samuel L. Jackson did not threaten to pull out if they didn't change it back, but he did strongly suggest they do so.

Hobo with a Shotgun. A fake trailer in the Grindhouse double feature (although seemingly limited to Canadian theatrical releases, for some illogical reason), you get exactly that. And about two minutes of sheer awesome ensues. Both the Hobo with a Shotgun and Machete trailers eventually inspired actual films.

The titles of the Ernest P. Worrell films ware never particularly ambiguous. Ernest Goes to Camp, Ernest Goes to Jail, Ernest Goes to Africa. Once memorably parodied on The Simpsons, with Ernest Goes Somewhere Cheap. Family Guy had Peter forced to choose between Ernest Goes to the Beach and Ernest Doesn't go to the Beach.

The long-running Finnish movie franchise Uuno Turhapuro almost always had titles like these. For example, the movie where the titular character Uuno Turhapuro joins the Army is called Uuno Turhapuro in the Ranks of the Army, the one where he moves to the countryside is called Uuno Turhapuro Moves to the Countryside, and so on. The prize, however, goes to Uuno Turhapuro Loses His Memory, and its sequel, Uuno Turhapuro's Memory Returns Bit by Bit.

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock: William Shatner himself admitted that with a title like this, there was no way it would end with Admiral Kirk turning to the audience and saying "Sorry, folks, we didn't find him." If it had, people would've thrown rocks at the screen.

Literature

In 1950 Mathematician Claude Shannon published his seminal work How to Teach Computers How to Play Chess. It was about how you could teach Computers how to play Chess.

The title of An Almanac of Complete World Knowledge Compiled with Instructive Annotation and Arranged in Useful Order by Me, John Hodgman, a Professional Writer, in The Areas of My Expertise, which Include: Matters Historical; Matters Literary; Matters Cryptozoological; Hobo Matters; Food, Drink, & Cheese (a Kind of Food); Squirrels & Lobsters & Eels; Haircuts; Utopia; What Will Happen in the Future; and Most Other Subjects; Illustrated with a Reasonable Number of Tables and Figures, and Featuring the Best of "Were You Aware of It?", John Hodgman's Long-Running Newspaper Novelty Column of Strange Facts and Oddities of the Bizarre gives you a pretty good idea of what you're in for.

There's also For your Consideration, The Firms of Dutton Riverhead Books of New York City, Publishers of Ken Follett, Darin Strauss, David Rees, and the RZA, Present in the English Language: A Further Compendium of Complete World Knowledge in "The Areas Of My Expertise" Assembled and Illumined by Me, John Hodgman, A Famous Minor Television Personality* , OfferingMore Information Than You Require' On subjects as Diverse As: The Past (As There Is Always More of it), The Future (As There is Still Some Left), All of the Presidents of the United States, The Secrets of Hollywood, Gambling, The Sport of the Asthmatic Man (Including Hermit-Crab Racing), Strange Encounters with Aliens, How to Buy a Computer, How to Cook an Owl, And Most Other Subjects, Plus: Answers To Your Questions Posed via Electronic Mail, And: 700 Mole-Man Names, Including Their Occupations. * Formerly a Former Professional Literary Agent and Professional Writer, AKA "The Deranged Millionaire". That's right, this book has a footnote in the title.

In a similar vein, there's Conjuring: Being a Definitive Account of the Venerable Arts of Sorcery, Prestidigitation, Wizardry, Deception, & Chicanery and of the Mountebanks & Scoundrels Who Have Perpetrated These Subterfuges on a Bewildered Public, by James Randi Esq., a Contrite Rascal Once Dedicated to these Wicked Practices but Now Almost Totally Reformed.

On a different kind of arcane subject, Joel on Software: And on Diverse and Occasionally Related Matters That Will Prove of Interest to Software Developers, Designers, and Managers, and to Those Who, Whether by Good Fortune or Ill Luck, Work with Them in Some Capacity.

Scientific works in general are likely to be this, although in older works there may be some elements of language marches on for modern readers.

For example Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica — Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. 'Natural philosophy' is now referred to as science.

Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper - On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies. We now call the theory Einstein described in it special relativity.

On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life by Charles Darwin.

It's not just scientific publications. Academic books, instruction manuals, almost everything tended to have this sort of title in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This was Affectionately parodied by the musicologist Robert O. Gjerdingen in his 2007 book Music in the Galant Style, Being an Essay on Various Schemata Characteristic of Eighteenth-Century Music for Courtly Chambers, Chapels, and Theaters, Including Tasteful Passages of Music Drawn from Most Excellent Chapel Masters in the Employ of Noble and Noteworthy Personages, Said Music All Collected for the Reader's Delectation on the World Wide Web. See also a parodic use of Antiquated Linguistics on that one. Come to think of it, it was actually pretty much a TV Tropes of eighteenth-century music...

50 Simple Things You Can Do to Save the Earth

Travels through Italy containing new and curious observations on that country; particularly the Grand Duchy of Tuscany; the Ecclesiastical State or the Dominions of the Pope; the Kingdom of Naples; the Republics of Venice and Genoa; and other Italian states. Wherein the present state of those countries is accurately described, as to their different kinds of government, situation, extent, revenue, power, trade, manners, and customs; but more especially their ANTIQUITIES as temples, triumphal arches, pillars, baths, amphitheatres, aqueducts, catacombs, ruins, and public ways; as also their MODERN CURIOSITIES, churches, convents, palaces, villas, castles, forts, bridges and public roads. With the most authentic account yet published of capital pieces in PAINTING, SCULPTURE, & ARCHITECTURE that are to be seen in Italy: Including remarks on the ANCIENT and PRESENT STATE of ITALY, of the ARTS AND SCIENCES which have flourished the re, and of TASTE in PAINTING; with the characters of the principal painters, and other artists. By John Northall, Esq. Captain in his Britannic Majesty's Royal Regiment of Artillery. Illustrated with A Map of Italy, a route of this Tour, and several copperplates, engraved from drawings taken on the spot. (London: S. Hooper and S. Bladon, 1766)

Children's authors seem to be quite fond of this trope: an eight-year-old student submitted the following review of The Boy Whose Mother Was A Pirate - 'It's about a boy and his mum and the boy's a boy and the mum's a pirate.'

David Drake's short story collection Men Hunting Things and its sequel Things Hunting Men.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory takes it to a whole new level, to the point that MANY of the chapters have a title that spoils the ensuing events. "Augustus Gloop Goes Up the Pipe" and "Mike Teavee Is Sent By Television" are just examples, and not the worst ones.

The Book of Useless Information. It's a book... which contains useless information.

The illustrated Japanese translation of Twilight was called The Boy Whom I Love Is a Vampire.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. It describes one day in the life of a man. His name is Ivan Denisovich. 51,000 words.

The Catcher Was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg. Yes, he was both a major league catcher and a spy—sometimes at the same time.

Australian children's author Paul Jennings has a book named "How Hedley Hopkins Did a Dare, Robbed a Grave, Made a New Friend Who Might Not Have Really Been There at All, and While He Was at It Committed a Terrible Sin Which Everyone Was Doing Even Though He Didn't Know It" which, unsurprisingly, is about how Hedley Hopkins did a dare, robbed a grave, made a new friend who might not have really been there at all, and while he was at it committed a terrible sin which everyone was doing even though he didn't know it

How to Avoid Huge Ships.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms has this in its chapters. Take the one called "Xiahou Dun Plucks Out and Swallows His Wounded Eye". Guess what happens in this chapter.

All chapter titles in A. A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh. The first one of the first book was called "In Which We Are Introduced to Winnie-the-Pooh and Some Bees and the Stories Begin", for crying out loud.

Cordwainer Smith's short story "Mark Elf" is a semi-aversion which doubles as a kind of Stealth Pun. The phrase "Mark Elf" does indeed appear in the story, but not in connection with anybody named Mark, elfin or otherwise. It refers to a "Mark Elf" (German for "Model Eleven") man-hunter robot.

Super-Frog Saves Tokyo By Haruki Murakami is about how a super-powerful frog saves Tokyo. And no, it's not a trash story.

Rudyard Kipling's "Lament of the Border Cattle Thief" is a poem about someone who crossed a border, stole cattle, got caught, and is upset about it.

The Protector of the Small quartet has rather basic titles: First Test, Page, Squire, and Lady Knight. The plots: Keladry of Mindelan enters page training on probation, becomes a full page, then a squire, and finally a knight. (Given Kel's matter-of-fact personality, this rather fits her.) The series title counts too — Kel spends most of her time defending animals and people who are either physically small or overlooked by society, or both.

There's a short story by Donald Barthelme called "Porcupines at the University", which is about some people at a university who observe some porcupines being herded past. Likewise, the main character in "I Bought A Little City" buys a little city. His novel The Dead Father prominently features a dead father. And so on.

Awake in the Night Land has a story called "The Last of All Suns", which takes place at the final moments of the Universe.

"No Bugles No Drums" by G. Gilmore was reportedly named this way by a witty publishing agent who came to aid of the author when he was struggling with a proper title for his work. She asked him if there was anything in the book about either bugles or drums. When the confused Gilmore said that there wasn't a single word about either of those things in it, since it was the life story of the marathon runner Peter Snell, she smiled and said that it was the perfect title then.

The Wandering Inn: The most terrible Necromancer in centuries, who devastated Liscor, is only known as The Necromancer.

Live-Action TV

Frasier does this with a bunch of episode titles in which a former Cheers character shows up, with the episode title being "The Show Where [Sam / Diane / Woody] Shows Up".

Star Trek does this in every series where the title is the franchise name (a story about a voyage, or trek, among the stars) and the subtitle is the name of the main setting of the series (Deep Space Nine/Voyager/Enterprise/Discovery). Only subverted once, with Star Trek: The Next Generation, which actually happened three generations after Star Trek: The Original Series.

Also with three pilot episode titles in a row: "Encounter at Farpoint" being an episode about an encounter at Farpoint Station; "The Emissary" being about Ben Sisko, aka "The Emissary of the Prophets," and "Caretaker," about an alien caretaker for a degenerating civilization.

Used to hilarious effect in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia with the episode titles. For example, the cold open will be Frank hatching a dangerous scheme, but claiming that no one will get hurt. Cue the episode title, "Frank Sets Sweet Dee on Fire."

The first-ever produced episode of I Love Lucy was entitled "Lucy Thinks Ricky is Trying to Murder Her". Bet you can't guess the plot. Most of the episode titles are like that. Most likely back then, the writers figured no-one but themselves would care about titles in a medium that a great many people still considered a passing fad. Why bother with clever titles?

Almost all episodes of Friends have the form of "The One With..." or "The One Where.." such as "The One Where Ross Meets Elizabeth's Dad", and even the exceptions still fit the trope ("The Pilot", "The Last One").

The Pilot's alternate title: The One Where Monica Gets A New Roommate. (Guess the plot).

The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret is about .. the increasingly poor decisions of Todd Margaret. With absurdly long episode titles like "In Which Brent Wilts Arrives and Things Take a Turn for the Worse", it really couldn't be spelled out more.

Parodied by the song "This Song's Just Six Words Long"... do the math. The song itself is not an example; even the oft-repeated chorus is actually "This song is just six words long", which is already Exactly Not What It Says On The Tin. Why? Well, "seven" doesn't fit the meter.

In the album credits for his polka medleys, the last "song" listed always represents the musical portions of the medley that Al himself composed. This was lampshaded in the credits for "Polka Face", where the last entry was titled "Whatever's Left Over Polka".

The opening theme song for the It's Garry Shandling's Show by Joey Carbone, Garry Shandling and Alan Zweibel, starts

''This is the theme to Garry's Show, The opening theme to Garry's show. Garry called me up and asked if I would write his theme song. I'm almost halfway finished, How do you like it so far? How do you like the theme to Garry's Show?

And goes on in the same vein.''

No FX: "45 or 46 Songs That Weren't Good Enough to Go on Our Other Records". Fortunately the song Fuck the Kids wasn't meant literally. The weird thing is there's actually 47 songs.

The compilation album Short Music for Short People. The album features 101 songs by 101 artists, with an average song length of around 30 seconds. Said compilation includes the tune "Mike Booted Our First Song, So We Recorded This One Instead" by Mad Caddies.

Much of the soundtrack to The Proposition consists of songs with titles like "Sad Violin Thing".

"Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving With a Pict" from Ummagumma is several species of small furry animals (a sped-up Roger Waters making animal noises) gathered together in a cave and grooving with a Pict (Waters again).

Pink Floyd once planned to release an album called Household Objects consisting of music played entirely on household objects.

When it first came out, a lot of people assumed Pink Floyd's song "Learning to Fly" was a metaphor about personal freedom and liberation. Nope. Turns out its about becoming a pilot and the joy of flying your own aircraft.

Pachelbel's Canon is, in full, "Canon and Gigue in D major for three Violins and Basso Continuo".

Beethoven's works most commonly called the Eroica Variations (for their use in the Eroica Symphony) were in full "Variations and Fugue for Piano in E flat major, Op. 35", while his Opus 20 was "Septet for clarinet, horn, bassoon, violin, viola, cello, and contrabass in E-flat major". It's no wonder many classical works are simply referred to by composer, opus, and number.

George Frederic Handel's "Music for the Royal Fireworks" was composed to be played at a royal gala. With fireworks.

Country singer Kenny Price recorded "The Shortest Song in the World," which was 18 seconds long and consisted of a two-measure intro, followed by Price singing "This is the shortest song in the world." Believe it or not, it was the B side of a single. Ironically enough, it isn't the shortest song in the world: this is.

Likewise, one of Peter Sellers's albums has a track called "Peter Sellers Sings George Gershwin", which consists of... Peter Sellers singing the words "George Gershwin".

They once recorded an album that is simply named Album. Depending on the format, the same album is also called Cassette or Compact Disc.

The band liked using this trope a fair amount. For example, the band's first album was aptly named First Issue.

The band's second album, originally packaged in metal film canisters, was named Metal Box. After this initial run, the album was reconfigured and renamed Second Edition.

Also, their latest album, released in 2012, is called This is PiL.

Possibly inspired by the aforementioned Public Image Ltd. album, the British record label Metalheadz released a compilation called Metalheadz Limited Edition CD Metal Box Set, which is a limited edition CD that comes in, you guessed it, a metal box.

Almost any album named Greatest Hits, especially if it's "[name of artist]'s Greatest Hits". Played with a bit in cases such as Greatest Hits Plus and Greatest Hits...and Then Some (two albums with this name), which include previously unreleased songs.

Similar to Greatest Hits compilations, almost any live album falls under this trope. (e.g. Johnny Cash's At Folsom Prison, The Who's Live at Leeds, Cheap Trick's At Budokan, etc.)

The Kentucky Headhunters released an album of soul music. What did they call it? Soul.

Apocalyptica's debut album, Plays Metallica By Four Cellos, which has the band, at the time a quartet of cellos, playing Metallica covers.

KISS' "Rock and Roll all Nite" is a song about rocking and rolling all night.

"Eleven Four" by the Dave Brubeck Quartet (actually by its saxophonist Paul Desmond) is in 11/4 time.

As is "Take Five" by the same ensemble in 5/4 time. The recording of this song on the LP is the fifth take of the day.

"The Really Terrible Orchestra" in Edinburgh is a no-audition orchestra of really terrible musicians. When one of the player bios says the person is "too able" for the orchestra...

The Birthday Massacre have an example of this. When they were called Imagica, they had a song called... The Birthday Massacre. Which was, in fact, about a massacre on someone's birthday. (The song's now called Happy Birthday, for the record).

Very similar is the briefly-existing band made up of certain former Yes members, Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe. No prizes for guessing who the former Yes members were note Jon Anderson, Bill Bruford, Rick Wakeman and Steve Howe, of course!

"The Song With the Slow Part" by Portraits of Past is a bit of a subversion. It has a slow part, but so do so many other of their songs, so it's not exactly THE song with the slow part.

Several of the songs released by King Missile, including "the Little Sandwich that Got a Guilt Complex Because He was the Sole Survivor of a Horrible Bus Crash," and "the Boy Who Ate Lasagna and Could Jump Over a Church" are prime examples of this trope

"Yeah" by Kyuss. The "song" is simply a brief recording of their singer saying "yeah."

Teenage Fanclub have a best of called Four Thousand Seven Hundred And Sixty-Six Seconds, which is 4766 seconds long.

Squarepusher's New Sound Album, "Solo Electric Bass 1." All the songs were played on an electric bass guitar without any other instruments, unlike the his trademark mishmash style of jungle, drum and bass, acid jazz, IDM, and experimental electronic music.

Several songs from Fridge's Happiness album. Can you guess what instruments were used to make the songs Cut Up Piano & Xylophone, Tone Guitar & Drum Noise, or Melodica & Trombone?

Fantomas Melvins Big Band were the members of Fantomas and the Melvins joining together to play songs from their respective catalogs live. About the only way that this wasn't an example is that they weren't that kind of Big Band, just a rock band with a larger number of people on stage at the same time than is usual.

IOSYS has a song called "Tewi Inaba's Really Irritating About Four and A Half Minutes". It's 4:23.

The State Anthem of the Soviet Union was... well, guess. The provinces of the USSR had similar anthems (such as the Anthem of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic).

Certain compilation albums on classical budget label Naxos. It's no surprise to see, for example, "Music for Solo Harp" containing... well, music performed on solo harp, or "2 Violins and 1 Guitar" containing music played on two violins and one guitar.

The Nails' "Eighty-Eight Lines about Forty-Four Women" is eighty-eight lines long, and mentions forty-four different women.

The early synth album Moog Plays the Beatles by Marty Gold. It's a synth album which is a Beatles tribute.

The Band From TV is a band made of TV actors.

The t+pazolite song "256 Secondz World Tour" is a 256-second long song incorporating styles of music from different parts of the world.

"Heresy" by Nine Inch Nails isn't just about heresy, the song itself is quite heretical.

Likewise, "Prayer" by Disturbed is literally a prayer, it's a conversation with God.

A British pop band of the 1960s called "Dave Dee, Beaky, Mick and Titch" consisted of performers with precisely those names.

Subverted in Fryderyk Chopin's "Minute Waltz" which apparently is very difficult to get through playing in 60 seconds.

A My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic tribute album called Just Rocks exists, inspired by the character Maud Pie, Pinkie Pie's incredibly boring and rock-obsessed sister. The "music" consists of various musicians moving rocks around, banging rocks together, rubbing rocks together, and recording the sounds made by these movements. Track names include "A lot of tracks of sounds of rocks being played at the same time", "Graphed Acceleration of a Rock dropped from a height in air [no units specified] (rendered as an audio file)" and "Almost Seven Minutes of Live Recording of Two Rocks of Different Types Being Banged, Scraped and Rubbed Against Eachother, With Background Noise From a Computer Fan and Rustling.".

True Story and related confessions-type magazines, including True Confessions: Purportedly. Many of these confessional-style stories were actual submissions by readers, but re-written, while others were complete fiction (thus inverting the trope); however, they typically followed a "sin-suffer-repent" formula, wherein the main character (these stories were always first person) explains her background, makes a poor life decision (such as marrying someone rumored to be a domestic abuser), suffers the consequences, things come to a head and the main protagonist takes steps to change her situation. After the situation is resolved, the main character explains the lessons learned, that she is (usually, but not always) unembittered by the negativity, and then explains what happened later (often, but not always, a positive, sunny outcome, with the bad guys in jail or having finally had their comeuppance/suffered negative consequences, such as jail or death). Many of the stories were from young women or teen-aged girls who had become stuck in bad relationships, although one memorable story was about a teen-aged girl who was trapped in an abusive familynote (escaping only after she overdoses on aspirin, is sent to foster care and is emancipated when her parents make the mistake of becoming violent with each other inside her foster home).

Pro Wrestling

Steel Cage match, a match inside a steel cage.

WWE's "Table, Ladders, and Chairs" matches. No points for guessing what 3 items are implemented in these.

I Quit Match, get your opponent to say the words, and there are no count-outs, submissions, disqualifications, or pin-falls. You Think.

Michael Cole: The Rules are simple. You gotta climb the pole, grab the flag, and you win, right? Brooker T: You just told them the rules.

Boiler Room Brawl, any guess where it takes place.

Ring of Fire - a variation of the Inferno match, where the fighters are in the ring that is surrounded by fire. Luckily, the ring match allows pin-falls and submission, instead of setting someone on fire.

I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue features a regular round called One Song to the Tune of Another. A big joke is made of the chairman's convoluted, and completely unnecessary, attempts to explain the rules.

Sports

The basketball team Motor City Muslims is a team from Detroit (a.k.a. Motor City) where ever member is Islamic.

Tabletop Games

GURPS stands for "Generic Universal Role-Playing System." This is a system to govern roleplaying games, in any genre, in any setting, and dealing with any subject matter. According to the creator, Steve Jackson, he intended to replace the term (originally a placeholder) with a more imaginative title and just couldn't think of anything.

In Yu-Gi-Oh!, there's a monster called a Trap Eater that eats, uhm, Traps. (That's how you summon it, you send an opponent's Trap Card to the Graveyard. In the anime, this is expressed by the monster literally eating the Trap.) There's also Negate Attack.

Waiting for Godot. That's it. Samuel Beckett, in general: among his other works are 'Act Without Words I' (an act without any spoken words), 'Act without Words II' (another act without any spoken words), Breath (a play just featuring the sound of someone breathing), 'Play' (a play), and 'Film' (you get the idea).

Actually zig-zagged by the play whose full title is "The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade" Yes, all that is the play's title. However, the zig-zag comes because among theater geeks (about the only people who have heard of it) it's usually just called Marat/Sade.

There's a very off-off-off-Broadway show called Naked Boys Singing. Yep. That's it.

A show advertised on this very wiki, Old Jews Telling Jokes.

A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking: A description that could fit more than a few TV shows, as well.

Cat out of the bag was a man releasing a cat from a bag.

Dutch artist Wim T. Schippers often uses this trope:

He made a play called "1. don't smoke; 2. don't eat; 3. smoke; 4 eat". In this play, five men enter the stage four times. The first two times they don't do anything, the third time they smoke a cigarette and the fourth time they eat a sandwich.

He is also the creator of the "Peanut Butter Floor" which is a floor entirely made out of peanut butter.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's early operaThe Abduction from the Seralgio. Plot: The main character is trapped in a seraglio and has to be abducted from it.

Soarin' Over California is solely about guests flying over the various sights of California. Likewise, it's successor, Soarin' Around the World is about soaring over various parts of the world and nothing else.

Video Games

Early NES games, particularly sports or arcade titles such as Pinball, Golf, and Ice Hockey tended to be this. Even now, sports games almost invariably have titles in the format of [franchise] [sport] [year].

There's a sidequest called "Shoot This Guy in the Face". The quest consists of... shooting the quest-giver in the face. note Yeah, it's literally required to shoot in him... in the face. Hitting him otherwise does not kill him And there's a trophy for completing this mission called "Well That Was Easy."

There's another sidequest called "Kill Yourself", in which the Big Bad pays you to jump off of a cliff. Although you can also opt out for the other possible mission objective.

Portal is (mostly) about portals (to begin with). In the sequel, there is also Chapter 9: The Part Where He Kills You (which is more aptly named "the part where he tries (again) to kill you and fails (again)".

Even funnier considering that two separate characters literally say "This is the part where he/I kill(s) you."

You even get an achievement titled "The Part Where He Kills You". The description reads "This is that part".

Referenced in LittleBigPlanet: "The Material Changer is Exactly What It Says On The Tin. Or on the cardboard. Or the polystyrene. Or whatever else it is that you want it to say it on."

Some of the logic fits this too. The Game Ender ends the game, the Smoke Emitter emits smoke, and all of the sensors sense exactly what they say they do. Player Sensors, Water Sensors, Tag Sensors, Impact Sensors, etc.

From Higurashi: When They Cry we have the Atonement Arc (Tsumihoroboshi-hen) where Keiichi remembers his actions from Abducted by demons arc (Onikakushi-hen) and ask for forgiveness and the Massacre arc (Minagoroshi-hen) where everyone in the village is massacred by the Big Bad, Takano, and her troops. The Eyeopening arc (Meakashi-hen) can also be this on a meta level since it reveals the truth about the cottondrifting arc (Watanagashi-hen) and is the first of the answer arcs.

From Umineko: When They Cry we have the End of the Golden Witch where Beatrice dies and the Requiem of the Golden Witch where Beatrice (or at least the concept of her) is buried.

Burly Men At Sea is about three stout brothers exploring the seas around the island where they live in a boat.

Pages of Girl Genius are named in groups. Examples of these titles include "Gil deals with it", "Monster Horse Beastie" and "Barfight, also Higgs" (the latter reintroducing Airman Higgs in the middle of a bar fight).

The Will It Blend? series of YouTube videos involve a man putting objects in a blender to see if they will blend. Subverted slightly in that they're actually a series of commercials to show that a particular brand of blender will blend pretty much anything. "Blendtec Blenders Can Blend [X]" would be closer to the trope.

You Only Live Once: In this flash game, you only have one life. PERIOD. When you press "continue", you just see the consequences of your death. Reloading the game to try again only shows grass growing on your grave.

There's a YouTube channel called "Cooking with (a) Dog". The banner says "It's not what you think..."note That is, not cooking dogs, except it's exactly what you think — cooking. With a dog, who is also the narrator.

The Things Dr. Bright Is Not Allowed to Do at the Foundation lists all the things Dr. Bright is not allowed do with or to other SCP Objects or SCP Foundation personel. There's 251 items on the list. A few of the items on the list reference out-of-universe stuff like D&D, My Little Pony, the Game, etc. so readers don't need to be completely SCP savvy to enjoy reading the list.

Things Mr. Welch Can No Longer Do in an RPG (starting here) is a collection — initially around 250, but now over 2000 — of similar examples ranging from outrageous powergaming to even more outrageous silliness that the titular Mr. Welch is prohibited from doing with an RPG character.

The Happy Video Game Nerd: Usually played straight but sometimes subverted. He mentions in his review of Eternal Darkness that viewers comment on his name as if that's his only modus operandi and that he should be praising games all the time. Instead, he reminds them that he's just honest about games he doesn't like but provides constructive criticism (backed by personal experience shown in the reviews) as to why that is.

Western Animation

''Spongebob Squarepants" have a scene on "Gary Takes a Bath" that have Spongebob giving Gary a "Boomerang Pet Toy" that really works, and Spongebob threw the box, which came to back to hit him.

South Park has a lot of episode titles that qualify, including, but not limited to, "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe", "Cartman joins NAMBLA", "Kenny Dies", "The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers", "All About Mormons", "Miss Teacher Bangs a Boy" and "Fantastic Easter Special".

The European bird called the Chiff-Chaff. It utters only one sound and does so endlessly, and that sound is, well, "Chiff-Chaff". The bird is called after its sound not only in English, but in other languages as well (e.g. in Dutch, the bird is also called after its sound, it's just rendered in Dutch as "Tjif-Tjaf").

Medicine:

Many disorders are this, since it's helpful and descriptive. Sadly, they only qualify if you know what the medical Latin means. Similarly, many internal body parts are like this, too, making life much easier for anatomy and physiology students.

Chronic fatigue syndrome (ME), in which one is generally permanently tired with all or many of the effects that come with that.

Many enzymes have names that just describe their functions, with an added "-ase" suffix to indicate that they're enzymes. Examples include RNA polymerase (which produces RNA via polymerisation) and reverse transcriptase (which produces a DNA strand through reverse transcription). Some make it even clearer what they are and what they do, such as citrate cleavage enzyme.

The Rocky Mountains of the United States are mountains made out of rock.

And the Rio Grande (Spanish for "big river") is a big river that flows between the USA and Mexico.

The Grand Canyon is a really big canyon. The Red River, between Texas and Oklahoma, where the ground is red shale that colors the water a distinct red. Red Rock Canyon in Oklahoma where the sides are made of... well, the examples go on and on.

The planet Earth is named after a synonym for the word "ground", because anyone on the surface is standing on exactly that.

The Moon is the only moon of the planet Earth. This is something of a reversal in etymology, though, as the term "moon" comes from the Moon of the Earth. Some people insist on calling it "Luna" - which still means moon.

Contrary to popular misconception, the scientific name for the Moon actually is "the Moon", not Luna.

The Sun is the only star in the planet Earth's solar system. As with the Moon, the term "sun" to refer to whatever star is at the center of a given solar system is derived from the Earth's Sun.

In 2000 Harry Markopolis wrote a report to the SEC entitled "The World's Largest Hedge Fund Is a Fraud ". It was about Bernie Madoff's fund. It contained overwhelming evidence that... well you know. The SEC still didn't get him for another 7 years.

From the "Only in Liberia" files presenting General Butt Naked. He led a guerrilla faction that was, yes, butt naked, and led them, butt naked. How they knew he was a general without anywhere to hang his insignia we don't know.

Astronomers aren't very original when it comes to naming their telescopes, leading them to name them exactly what they are. There's the Large Binocular Telescope in Arizona which is a binocular telescope that is indeed quite large, the Very Large Telescope in Chile which uses four telescopes to generate one very large virtual telescope, the descriptively named Thirty Meter Telescope in Hawaii, and the (canceled) Overwhelmingly Large Telescope. Parodied by xkcd. Radio astronomers follow the same pattern; arrays of telescope dishes have such creative names as Very Large Array, Very Small Array, and Square Kilometer Array. Many of them are just named after the mountain they're built on, or the nearest town.

Biologists aren't very imaginative either, so there are lots of species that do this. Like the brown long-eared bat, which is a brown bat with long ears.

If you know the Greek and Latin roots of words, you will see that a lot of words mean exactly what they're supposed to mean. For example, "phlebotomy", which comes from the Greek phlebo-, meaning "vein", and -tomy, meaning "cutting, incision" of an organ and "excision" of an object. Yep, that's pretty much what phlebotomists do.

In German, the word for 'drums' is 'schlagzeug'. Translated literally, this means 'hit-things', which is exactly what drums are.

London Weekend Television was a company that broadcast television. In London. At the Weekend.

Polynesia means "many islands" in Greek. It is exactly that- many islands spread out across a large portion of the Pacific Ocean.

In 1973, a Norwegian guy named Anders Lange founded a political party whose platform was based on a strong reduction of taxes, duties and public intervention. Its name? Anders Lange's Party for a Strong Reduction in Taxes, Duties and Public Intervention.

An episode of Pokémon has the heroes facing a gang that says, "We are a band of Diglett thieves known as The Band of Diglett Thieves!" When the heroes mock their name, the gang replies, "We used to have a cooler name, but those old fools could never remember it!"

12 Beast has Eita Touga's weapon of choice (aside from his PSP and tablet): the Gigas Slayer, a magical gauntlet capable of slaying the nigh-indestructible Gigas.

Sands of Destruction (both the anime and manga) features the World Destruction Committee. Guess what they want to do? They are opposed by the World Salvation Committee; no points for guessing what they want to prevent.

Comedy

Invoked by comedian Ed Byrne as an introduction to a series of jokes about religion and homosexuality: "Let me explain what God Hates Fags are about, for those of you who didn't know what to expect from Snakes on a Plane. 'Hmm, I haven't been this mystified by the title of a film since The Mummy Returns!'"

Australian comedian Steve Hughes tells a joke claiming that this trope is the attitude Australians have towards naming most of the things in their country, citing examples such as the Sydney Harbour Bridge ("It's a bridge, it's in Sydney, and it spans the harbour!"), the Snowy Mountains and the Great Sandy Desert ("Took us ages to think of a name for that!"), the states South Australia and Western Australia, and the Northern Territories.

Eddie Izzard's take on horror films: "It's like those people who go camping in millions of films."

Person 1: Lets go camping in The Forest of Death and Blood. Person 2: Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. Whoa. The Forest of Death and Blood, isn't there a story behind that name? Person 1: Why yes, if one goes there they die of death and blood. Person 2: I'll pass on this...

Patriot: I'm sorry: "Speed"? Speed: Nice fit, don't you think? Hawkeye: What's wrong with "Speed"? It tells you everything you need to know in one syllable.

A similar lampshade came when Molly Hayes (a kid with super strength) gut punches The Punisher (a guy with no powers but guns). Molly is sorry as "how was [she] supposed to know he didn't have powers?" Victor's response "you think he's got some punishy force?"

Invisible Woman: She's an invisible woman, though the name doesn't mention her forcefield powers. However, it was the full extent of her powers when first created and named, the forcefields came later.

Some of the mobsters Daredevil had to fight during his carreer. Aside from his sworn enemy, The Kingpin, he has also crashed with the holders of such creative nicknames as The Organizer, The Boss and The Masked Marauder.

Speaking of mobs, the famous trio of mob enforcers is called The Enforcers.

Subverted with Skrull-spy-who-has-gone-native-and-is-now-a-hero, The Crusader, who emphatically tells his protegé not to use a name which suggests your power set (and weaknesses). Freedom Ring... whose powers were derived from his ring... really should have listened.

One of the supporting characters in Grim Jack went by the name Goddess. It was eventually shown that she was indeed one, specifically from one of the African myths.

No prizes for guessing what animal Alexander Lemming from The Beano is. Also from The Beano Roger the Dodger who as the name suggests tries to dodge things mainly work.

Doom Patrol has had a few of these: The Chief is the leader of the team, Robotman is a man who became a robot, Danny the Street is a sentient street called Danny, and Beard Hunter is a guy who hunts for... Well, take a guess.

In Sex Criminals, Suzie refers to the totally silent, frozen-time post-orgasm world as "The Quiet".

The Evrongun is the standard emotion-draining sidearm of the Evronians, and has a genetic scan that allow them to be used only by Evronians (generals also have Evronguns that can be used only by their owner).

In Equestria: A History Revealed, the Lemony Narrator cites references from a book called, "How the Sea-Pony Wished Upon a Star and Unknowingly Started Racial Prosecution Under an Emergent Fascist Regime: A Collection of Filly’s Tales and Legends that Start Off Whimsical but End in Destruction and Death".

Boris Blavasky, a.k.a Boris The Butcher from The Man Who Knew Too Little, in both senses. He is a hitman famous for brutal and messy hits by night. By day, he is the owner and proprietor of a butcher's shop.

The All Terrain-series of walkers, on multiple levels. They are called walkers because they move on legs instead than wheels, threads or repulsors. The third and fourth letter in the popular name of any walker describe their purpose (AT-ST, for example, is a Scout Transport, while the famed AT-AT is an Armored Transport, armored enough that normal ground artillery can't damage it). Finally, the first and second letter stand for "All Terrain"... And Star Wars: The Clone Wars shows the AT-TE, usually fielded on flat terrain, used in multiple odd terrains, such as mountain but vertically and outer space.

Similarly, the SPHA-series of walkers. SPHA stands for Self-Propelled Heavy Artillery and they're just that, vehicles that carry artillery heavy enough to take on starships, with an additional letter specifying what kind of artillery (the SPHA-T has a turbolaser, the SPHA-I has an ion cannon, the SPHA-V has an anti-vehicle laser, the SPHA-C carries concussion missiles, and the SPHA-M has a mass driver).

Captain Underpants and the Invasion of the Incredibly Naughty Cafeteria Ladies from Outer Space (and the Subsequent Assault of the Equally Evil Lunchroom Zombie Nerds) Most of the other Captain Underpants books also qualify or come close; for example, Captain Underpants and the Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants.

Hix: A lot of really interesting stuff happened under the Evil Emperor. Glenda: Evil stuff. Hix: Yes, that was rather the point. Evil Emperor. Evil Empire. It did what it said on the iron maiden.

In Snuff, it's invoked again when describing the troll Detritus's converted siege weapon crossbow, the piecemaker, "which could, as it were, do what it said on the box."

All of Leonard of Quirm's inventions, such as "the going under the water safely device".

The Ashenden spy stories by W. Somerset Maugham featured a character called "The Hairless Mexican".

"Why?" "Because he's hairless and because he's a Mexican"

In Doom: Knee-Deep in the Dead, Fly and Arlene are coming up with Reporting Names for the monsters they fight. Fly asks for a suggestion for the flying skulls he's fought and Arlene's response is "flying skulls". Fly misunderstands it as a question, confirms that he's seen flying skull monsters, and asks again for a suggestion. Arlene's response:

Arlene:Flying skulls, you lamebrain! Call 'em as you see 'em.

In the Hurog duology, with the eponymous castle as well as the main character. The castle, as well as the family, is called Hurog, which means "dragon" in their ancient language. Turns out the castle is built over the bones of a dragon The main character takes on the title of "Hurogmeten" which means "Guardian of Dragons". He does Exactly What It Says On The Tin. Turns out, dragons can turn into humans and the family has dragon blood. Which, incidentally, is the title of the second book of the series.

In Portlandtown, the legendary Hanged Man is called that because he was hanged, and survived.

Many times there is this weapon mentioned called a "Dragonlance". A character by the name of Fizban tries to explain all he knows about this great mystical weapon by relaying, "It was a weapon similar to — no, it wasn't. Actually it was — no, it wasn't that either. It was closer to... almost a... rather it was, sort of a — lance, that's it! A lance!" He nodded earnestly. "And it was quite good against dragons."

The leader of the original Companions was Tanis Half-Elven, named so because the elves that raised him didn't know the name of his human father, and they would be damned if they were going to give him the family name of his mother. Lampshaded when one of his new companions asked him why he wasn't named "Half-Human"?

Lampshaded in The Kids in the Hall sketch about an Ex-Girlfriends Relocation Program. "It's complicated, so allow me to explain. The Ex-Girlfriends Relocation Program is a program that relocates ex-girlfriends. ...Gee, I guess it wasn't that complicated."

In the second episode, Michael discovers a bag in the fridge labeled "Dead Dove: Do Not Eat". After looking in the bag he delivers his classic response: "I don't know what I was expecting."

Also, Tobias is a "nevernude", and when Michael finds this out, he asks, "Is that exactly what it sounds like?"

The overly long titles of the iCarly skits. For titles like "Pathetic Plays: (insert long title)", "The prisoner who wanted some soup and the man who refused to give him some" and "The cowboy with a mustache and the idiot farm girl who thought the mustache was a squirrel".

Also this happened on Wizards of Waverly Place, where they even outright stated, "In the Wizarding worlds people name their children what they want them to grow up to be." This episode included a tutor named Tutor. This didn't always work, though.

One hopes for Prince George's sake that Blackadder's play "Thick Jack Clot Sits in the Stocks and Gets Pelted with Rancid Tomatoes" isn't an example of this trope, since Blackadder wants him to play the title role.

Earlier in the same episode, another play is mentioned and then rehearsed:

Mossop: It is a piece we penned ourselves, called The Bloody Murder of the Foul Prince Romero and His Enormously Bosomed Wife. Blackadder: A philosophical work, then? Keanrick: Indeed yes. The violence of the murder and the vastness of the bosom are entirely justified artistically.

In an episode of Seinfeld, Elaine is at a video store trying to find something to rent and picks one up called "The Pain and the Yearning". She turns it over to read the synopsis on the back: "An old woman experiences pain and yearning."

The Bill Nye the Science Guy episode about heat has a few clips featuring a big sweaty guy called Big Sweaty Guy. The show itself could be seen as an example of the trope, since it was presented by Bill Nye and about science.

In Todd and the Book of Pure Evil there is a book that is called "The Book of Pure Evil". Guess what it does. This is lampshaded many times after everything goes wrong and someone has to ask something along the lines of, "What did you think would happen when reading from something called "The Book of Pure Evil?""

Spoofed in the Gerry Anderson pilot Space Police (which was later reworked as Space Precinct): the villain, Mr. Big, is based out of a nightclub called "Mr. Big's Secret Hideout" which is covered with neon signs and arrows indicating same.

Del's idea for a film in Only Fools and Horses: "There is a Rhino Loose in the City". Unsurprisingly, his explanation of the plot makes no sense whatsoever.

Star Trek: The Original Series' mirror universe had an handheld device called an agonizer and a booth called the agony booth which were used to punish crew members.

Mr. Milton: It says "Crunchy Frog" quite clearly [on the box]. Officer: The superintendent thought it was an almond whirl... I must warn you that in future, you should delete the words "Crunchy Frog" and replace them with the legend, "Crunchy Raw Unboned Real Dead Frog" if you want to avoid prosecution.

In the Supernatural episode "Bloodlines", the following conversation occurs:

David: My name is David Lassiter. I'm a shapeshifter. Ennis: You're a what? David: We shift... our shape. It's kind of all there in the name.

On How I Met Your Mother, Barney is very confident that a live wrestling match called "Wrestlers vs. Robots" will be just as incredibly cool as it sounds from the title: He can predict that the gang will have a tradition of going there every year, even before he's seen the show for the first time, because with a name like "Wrestlers vs. Robots," how could it not be awesome? And while Barney is disappointed that Ted pursues other plans, it seems that he has no disappointments with the event itself, and that the event is exactly what it sounds like from the title: a wrestling match that pitted human wrestlers against robots that were built for competing in such wrestling matches.

The X-Files features recurring antagonist The Cigarette-Smoking Man. He is a man who near-constantly smokes cigarettes.

In season 4, episode 20 of the British Top Gear, they make a vehicle capable of working as a conventional van or hovercraft. What do they name it? The "Hovervan".

In the Henry Danger episode "Super Volcano", Jasper asks Henry what the TV show "Kids in the Woods" is about and Henry dryly replies "It's about kids in the woods."

Music

Parodied: An early Saturday Night Livehung a lampshade on this trope by having Frank Sinatra (played by Joe Piscopo) trying to update his image by recording an album with tunes that the young people would enjoy. The title of the album? Frank Sings Tunes the Young People Will Enjoy.

For every monster with an obscure or entirely nonsensical name, there's another one or two monsters that's exactly what it says on the tin — take a wild guess what Blooddrinker Oozes, Invisible Stalkers, or Flame Snakes do. This can get particularly amusing when players, upon encountering a strange monster for the first time, start referring to it by a name that turns out to be what it's actually called in the Monster Manual.

Owlbears. They're... bears... with owl heads. You can't get more tinny than that.

The infamous "Brain-in-a-Jar"?

Same goes for prestige classes: for every Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil and Green Star Adept, there's a Frost Mage or Exotic Weapon Master.

The standard Ring of Invisibility allowed its wearer to become invisible. The joke Invisible Ring, on the other hand, is itself invisible.

Likewise, in 3.0, there is an item called "Ring of Death Immunity". It's a magic ring that makes the wearer immune to Death. Not Death Effects. Death. Also qualifies as a Game-Breaking Powerup.

Jagex is apparently fond of this trope, given some of the quest and area names. The Goblin Village is a village... with goblins. Dragon Slayer is a slaying quest that involves, yep, a dragon. Black Knight Fortress... eh, you get the idea.

In the new skill Dungeoneering, when you mouse over the list of end of dungeon awards, you get information about that award. If you were unfortunate enough to get "Most deaths" and them mouse over it, the trope name appears.

The trope name appears on another item, fungicide. Examining the item gives this: "Does exactly what it says on the tin (kills fungi)".

In Diablo II if you click on a shrine labeled "exploding shrine", it... explodes. Similarly, poison shrines are poisonous.

Many spell names in the older English Dragon Quest ( pre-VIII) localizations. Heal heals some HP. You can probably guess what Healmore and Healall do. Sleep puts an enemy group to sleep. The first game is especially egregious, calling your offensive spells Hurt and Hurtmore (later games changed these to Blaze and Blazemore).

Hellsinker is so loaded with proprietary terminology (even the options menu and exit command have unique names!) that this trope is the exception rather than the rule. "Kill" is how many enemies you've destroyed. "Timer" is how much time has passed within the stage. "Life" is your lives. "Subweapon" is your alternate weapon.

Some Doom II: Hell on Earth levels are this : "Entryway" is the entrance both of the spaceport and of the game. In "The Gantlet" one has to fight through swarms of monsters.note "Gantlet" is an archaic term from the Swedish "gantlopp" or "gantlope" (lane); over time it got merged with the French-derived "gauntlet" (long glove) and is now usually spelled that way. "The Crusher" prominently features a crushing ceiling. "Dead Simple" is a very simple level — and if you're not careful you will end up dead. "Tricks and Traps" is full of nasty surprises. "The Pit" is built around a huge pit. "The Living End" is the last non-boss level.

It offers "Hell Arena", if you go in there expecting anything other then a fight with demons, then you will deserve what you get.

Similarly, some of the challenge game names are pretty self-explanatory. If you see a challenge called Angel of Shotgunnery, then guess which kind of weapons will be the only one you can use.

WildStar has the Path system, divided into four distinct professions: the Soldier, who kills hostiles and handles security; the Explorer, who maps out the world, finds underground systems and hidden paths, and goes on surveillance/recon missions; the Scientist, who studies, re-purposes, and hacks the flora, fauna, and forgotten technology on Nexus; and the Settler, who builds their respective faction's infrastructure like buff stations, transportation, and supply caches.

PlanetSide 2's Halloween 2014 renamed several bases. The infamous "Subterranean Nanite Analysis" was renamed to the much more fitting "Pit of Despair". The base is built into an underground pit, and is a horrible, horrible meatgrinder for attackers such that players often just straight up log off in despair when their allies attack the base. Sadly, the name was reverted at the end of the event.

Sands of Destruction features the World Annihilation Front. Guess what they want to do? They are opposed by the World Salvation Committee; no points for guessing what they want to prevent.

The Demented Cartoon Movie has a lot of these: the Auto Romeo Maker, the Kamikaze Watermelon, the Make-The-World-Blow-Up Button, Mr. Large Generic Blunt Object, the Crash-Yourself-Into-A-Brick-Wall Race, etc.

The Filler Strips character Yelling Bird, whose only purpose is to yell obscenities at the author.

Hannelore's father (who lives in space) owns a spaceship named Spaceship, and a space station named Station. Station explains that Hannelore went through an "overly descriptive phase," and the names stuck.

In The Way of the Metagamer, there's a town called "Townwithanequipmentstoreaplacewithmapsandatavernofcourse". Guess which three things are located in said town.

In Homestuck, troll movies are apparently named this way, due to the troll civilization being so old that all the good movie titles are taken.

CG: WHEREIN NUMEROUS VIGILANTES CONFRONT PERIL; ONE OF THEM BETRAYS THE OTHERS; (BUT IT TURNS OUT TO BE PART OF THE PLAN ALL ALONG); CG: SEVERAL ATTRACTIVE FEMALE LEADS PROVOKE ROMANTIC TENSION; FOUR MAJOR CHARACTERS WEAR UNUSUAL HATS; ONE HOLDS PLOT-CRITICAL SECRET; CG: 47 ON-SCREEN EXPLOSIONS, ONE RESULTING IN DEMISE OF KEY-ADVERSARY; 6 to 20 LINES THAT COULD BE CONSTRUED AS HUMOROUS; EB: wait... EB: this is the title? CG: IT GOES ON.

In Goblins, a pair of adventurers have collected a wide array of curses from a dungeon crawl called the Cursewalk. Bowst (the fighter) adds that he wasn't expecting that, to what Forgath retorts that the name "Cursewalk" should have tipped him off.

The setting is pretty lazy about its location names. There's the Northern Continent (it's to the north), the Southern Continent (it's to the south), the Western Continent (guess), Greysky City (it rains a lot), Cliffport (a port on a cliff), Redmountain Hills (lots of hills and mountains, all red), the Oracle of Sunken Valley (he lives in Sunken Valley, which is itself pretty self-explanatory), so on and so on. This is pretty much the same as real life; most locations have blandly descriptive names, even if they're in a foreign language and seem more interesting.

Played for laughs in the Kickstarter-backer story How the Paladin Got His Scar. All of the Southern Continent was once under the control of the Ancient Empire, before it splintered into the modern countries (including Azure City, where much of the plot takes place). No one knows why they called themselves the Ancient Empire.

Web Original

The final round in Pappy's Flatshare Slamdown is the Quick-Fire Round. The standard opening lines for that round's very slow jingle sums it up: "This is the quick-fire round. It's a round that goes really quickly".

The Dutch Gamesite named Gamekings once had an item named: A look into the kitchen of Rockstar (which besides the literal meaning means something like: A look behind the scenes of Rockstar) Little did viewers know that they indeed showed the kitchen of the Rockstar studios.

Parodied by The Cinema Snob, when he comments on a film titled Death Bed: The Bed That Eats, that he and everybody else in the world should know what to expect. Turns out it's an artsploitation flick with pretensions of seriousness and relatively minimal gore. It does have a bed that eats, at least.

One episode of Agents of Cracked has Swaim being asked to make a Facebook for the site, and he assumes this trope is in effect. The result screams, faintly, in its bloody box. They end up having an intern make "the other kind" of Facebook instead.

Subverting this is something of a meme on 4chan, where users will deliberately misname images as a joke (e.g. a .gif of Jackie Chan punching a guy will be labeled as "Bruce Lee Practices a rider kick," and the like).

The Happy Video Game Nerd: Usually played straight but sometimes subverted. He mentions in his review of Eternal Darkness that viewers comment on his name as if that's his only modus operandi and that he should be praising games all the time. Instead, he reminds them that he's just honest about games he doesn't like but provides constructive criticism (backed by personal experience shown in the reviews) as to why that is.

Western Animation

The Angry Beavers: In "Gift Hoarse" and "Muscular Beaver 4", we see ToeBot. You'll only need two guesses.

Some of the news reporters are people like "a Hispanic Man with Some Gravy Stains on his Lapel", or "Midget Wearing Bikini". There was also a reporter who was introduced by the anchor as "a normal-looking guy with a funny name" (his name is shown as "Creamy Goodness").

Krusty once introduced a Show Within a Show titled Trans-Clown-o-Morphs that was about, as the theme song described, "transforming clowns that morph".

Naturally parodied.

Karl: Hey, I heard we're goin' to Ape Island. Lenny: Yeah, to capture a giant ape. Carl: I wish we were going to Candy Apple Island. Charlie: Candy Apple Island? What do they got there? Carl: Apes. But they're not so big.

Dodgers smugly says that Marvin the Martian can't shoot him with a disintegrator since he's wearing a disintegration-proof vest. The vest does not disintegrate. Duck Dodgers does. He gets better, though.

Immediately afterwards, Dodgers retaliates with his own disintegrating pistol. He pulls the trigger, and the guncrumbles into powder. "Well, what do you know... it disintegrated."

The Wile E Coyote And The Roadrunner short "Stop! Look! And Hasten!" has Wile follow the instructions from a book titled "How to Build a Burmese Tiger Trap". One guess what he catches in the resulting pit instead of the Road Runner. Likewise, a Giant Mouse Trap will catch a giant mouse. Who is none too pleased with the coyote.

In one episode of Tiny Toon Adventures, a troll challenges Buster to face three trials. In the second trial, the troll says he must fight the "Three Guys who Charge at You With Spears and Fall Off a Cliff". Guess what happens next.

The entire cast of The Mr. Men Show can be defined by their names: Mr. Happy, Mr. Strong, Miss Helpful, etc.

The Smurfs are a good example of this. Each smurf's name reflects their personality. Grouchy Smurf is grouchy, Handy Smurf is handy, Papa Smurf is their, well, papa.

In the animated version of Beetlejuice, the monster who lives across the street from the protagonist is named... the Monster Across the Street.

ALL of Dr. Doofenshmirtz's "-inators" minus his first, which was simply called the "Inator". Lampshaded in one episode when he mentions that he hasn't quite figured out the name for his new machine and goes through various obvious names (The "Who's-laughing-now-inator"!) and mentions it'll be something with the "inator" suffix.

"The Wrapped-Up-In-a-Nice-Little-Bow-inator! I bet you're wondering what it does?"

An episode of Yin Yang Yo! features toy glasses with toothed metallic "jaws" called "Eyebiters." They bite the wearer's eyes.

Recess: Lawson always names things this way, such as renaming Fort Tender to Fort Fort, naming a submarine "Sub", and naming his soccer team "The Winning Guys" (who did, in fact, win the tournament at the end of the episode).

"Fight Fighters" features a machine at the arcade that on the outside merely reads "Insert Token!" where you'd expect the name of the game. Turns out, "Insert Token!" is an accurate description of the entire game.

In "Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons", Probabilitor summons an "Ogrenado". He gleefully informs the cast that "It is what it sounds like!"

Dragon Tales has the "lost forever hole." If something falls into this hole, it really is lost forever. Gone, finito, no hope of recovery, as Ord learns to great sadness when he accidentally drops his favorite blanket into it.

In Gargoyles, a powerful magical artifact is known as the Eye of Odin. Later in the series Odin shows up, reclaims the eye, and promptly puts it back in its socket.

The second season of Bojack Horseman introduces a game show entitled Hollywoo Stars and Celebrities: What Do They Know? Do They Know Things?? Let's Find Out!. True to the name, the viewers/audience finds out how much trivia Hollywoo's stars and celebrities know.

Alternative Title(s):REALLY Self Explanatory, Aptly Named, Exactly What It Sounds Like, What It Says On The Tin, Exactly What They Say On The Tins, Just That

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